Is Kerry's Campaign Colorblind?
By Colbert I. King
Washington Post
Saturday, April 24, 2004; Page A21
John Kerry, oh, John Kerry, say it isn't so. But, alas, apparently 'tis true.
The Massachusetts senator, putative 2004 Democratic standard-bearer and soon-to-be leader of the party that most voting African Americans and other people of color call home, has an innermost circle of advisers that is practically as white as the driven snow. That slam against the Kerry high command appeared last week in "The Inside Edge" column of Carlos Watson on CNN.com.
Not wanting to believe that Kerry would assemble a team of insiders with faces that exclusively resembled Europe -- especially after proclaiming throughout the length and breadth of the land that he wants our workplaces to reflect the full face of America -- I called the Kerry campaign in Washington and got press spokesperson Stephanie Cutter on the phone.
I asked her: Is Carlos Watson's assertion true?
Watson, for the record, had written that, unlike former vice president Al Gore, who had an African American campaign manager, political director and finance director, Kerry has no person of color in his inner circle, including the campaign manager, campaign chairperson, media adviser, policy director, foreign policy adviser, general election manager, convention planner, national finance chairman and head of the vice presidential search team.
Cutter's answer to my question was truly Clintonesque. It all depends, she said, on what you mean by inner circle.
Whoop, there it is.
Watson may be on to something after all. Could it be that at the start of another election cycle, the Democratic Party's most loyal constituencies are on the outside looking in?
But wait a minute, Cutter interjected. Kerry just so happened to have issued a press release on April 16, the same day Watson's column appeared, announcing a significant expansion of his campaign's senior staff. The release did not identify the appointees by color, but Cutter obtained a copy and ran down the list, carefully identifying which of the listed "all-stars" were of a darker hue.
Cutter said the Kerry campaign would have more to say on the subject this week. And sure enough, on Thursday it unveiled another list: the "community outreach senior leadership." These staffers are charged with energizing "core Democratic constituencies across the country."
While the "all-stars" and the "community outreach senior leadership" are different groupies with ostensibly different missions, their purposes are much the same: to go forth with marching orders from the Kerry leadership, to mobilize the party's base, to link up and make nice with various party and special interests, and to implement the strategy and carry the message formulated by the tight circle of white Kerry leadership.
No non-WASP group, by order of the Kerry high command, shall go untouched. Well, almost.
This week, according to the release, senior leaders have been assigned, pretty much according to their race, religion or ethnicity, to handle their respective groups. There's a separate outreach official for African Americans and one for Hispanics. The Jewish community outreach person also handles Middle East and Jewish affairs. One senior outreacher has a full plate, with responsibility for Arab Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Hungarian Americans, Polish Americans and Portuguese Americans.
Greek Americans are apparently out of luck. So are Turkish Americans. They don't seem to be assigned. But Asian Pacific Islanders have a senior outreach official of their own. So do the environmental crowd, women and LGBT, which the press release fails to spell out (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people).
Regardless of how much the Kerry press releases make it
sound as if those "all-stars" and "senior advisers" are
the Dream Team, they aren't the people calling the shots.
They don't have a hand in positioning the candidate or in
guiding his campaign. That is the special preserve of the
inner circle.
Let's be fair, you might argue. Doesn't Kerry have a right
to surround himself with close friends and top assistants
who click with him? Of course. But is it too much to
expect that the Democratic Party's top liberal, the
candidate who cries that he has "fought for civil rights
and equal opportunity for every American my whole life,"
who brags about his efforts to "enhance diversity," and
whose message is inclusiveness, would in fact have a
presidential campaign inner circle that is reflective of
the diversity of his party and the country? And if
elected, will Kerry govern that way?
As for grand strategists, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth
Cahill made it plain in a story this week by The Post's
Jim VandeHei that only six people qualify in Kerry's camp
as real insiders: herself, Bob Shrum, Michael Donilon, Tad
Devine, Tom Kiley and Mark Mellman.
And they don't look like America.
Maybe Carlos Watson got it right.
kingc@washpost.com
© 2004 The Washington Post Company |
